First off how big is the supporting civilian population? The army is never bigger than the supporting population. In fact if one in ten is a full time solder you would be lucky.2 in ten when pressed could be semi trained reservists who only train once or twice a year and only for their own defense.
In ancient times nations only went to war after the harvest season and before planting season. Most full time solders still mostly did physical grunt work to fill in the dawn time. Helping on the farms and maintaining the roads.There were also no professional police forces so the solders would also do that duty. Tax collectors, boarder guards and their own support staff.
There was very little trained support staff for ancient armies. They did everything from maintaining their uniforms, equipment and arms. To taking care of their own animals.
During and before the American Civil War it was a well known practice of rich men to recruit train equip and then field their own troops. They would be granted rank according to the amount and type of solders raised. Fort Pulaski is named after a polish noble who came to America and financed his own command.
Modern armies now have about a 4 to 1 support troop count. Four noncombat support troops to every combat troop.
During the height of the knightly era they knights were the nobles who hired their own support troops. At the beginning most were just well armored commanders. Towards the end of that era most knights were solders who were hired and equipped by the local noble/king.
First determine what style of army you will have. Anything from a roving band of angry people, mongol hoards, knights, or modern industrial mass production army. Then determine how many can be afforded.
As for magic in your army. Remember caster of any style are the most educated and thus highest paid troop you will ever have. Are you really going to waste his spell slots on messaging? No. Are you going to use his for a front line medic? No he will stay back like a doctor and wait for the wounded to show up. And if you ever use a caster in combat they are going to be the best protected and defended unit on the field, they will be watched for and targeted all the time by the other side. Imagine 100 archers taking max range shots at them for the duration of the fight. That 150 foot range fireball puts them right in the middle of ranged combat. Long bow has a short range of 150 feet.
A casters real army work begins a year ahead of the battle. They should be making healing potions and scrolls for the upcoming battles. Every spell on a scroll is a saved spell slot. Every magic item usable by a typical solder is a saved caster.
This is a rather vague question. There are so many factors that influence what an army should look like, without some parameters, I can only answer your question with other questions:
What is the demographic situation in the area you want to base the army in? If you have loads of people to recruit, you can field massive armies that want to fight pitch battles, but without people the best you could do is guerilla forces whose main objective is to harass the enemy and avoid battles.
What is the political situation of the country? Is it a feudal state or a centralised entity? With the former you're looking at a bunch of smaller armies that are more loyal to their lords rahter than the ruler; with the latter, you can see high levels of organisation where the only things limiting army sizes are logistics and available manpower. Are there any laws or rules that prevent fielding huge militaries? Are there cultural taboos that go against such a thing?
What is the economic situation of the area? A rich place will field larger and better troops than a poorer one. Or the rich areas can hire mercenaries to fight instead of them or as auxiliaries, preserving their own manpower.
How common is magic in your setting? If it is common, how destructive is it? If highly destructive magic is fairly common, you might find that armies are obsolete, and each mage could be a walking nuke.
What is the geography of the area the troops are expected to fight in? Plains, hills, mountains, forests, jungles, deserts... these are only the terrain types that can influence how you approach the theatre, and you haven't even accounted for the climate.
What enemy are the troops expected to fight? Are they going in for a punitive mission, are they going in for a war for conquest? Something else? Are they expected to fight other armies or guerillas?
Do races in your setting have inherent advantages or disadvantages? They would probably try building armies around these.
And I'm sure I've missed a bunch of other parameters, but I think I've made my point clear. Just asking "How to build an army?" is too vague of a question to provide a satisfactory answer.
if you want to build army in dnd become necromancy wizard and cast animate dead a lot at grave sites ancient battlefields bone piles or anywhere else you can imagine dead bodies being and then for the big beast use the teams cleric (if you have one ) to cast true resurrection and then take a long rest and repeat if there is more than one .
Hi, First time posting. I am hoping to find out what a good DnD army should look like.
I have done some research. And have fond a typical army set up is: a four person Team lead by a Sergeant, four Teams in a Squad lead by a Staff Sergeant, four Squads in a Platoon lead by a Lieutenant, four Platoons in a Company lead by a Captain, five Companies in a Battalion lead by a Lieutenant Colonel, three Battalions in a Regiment lead by a Colonel, three Regiments in a Division lead by a Major General, seven Divisions in a Corps lead by a Lieutenant General and 5 corps in a army lead by the General.
All that together equals about 403,200 soldiers, 100,800 Sergeants, 25,200 Staff Sergeants, 6,300 Lieutenants, 1,575 captions, 315 Lieutenant Colonels, 105 Colonels, 35 Major Generals, 5 Lieutenant Generals and 1 General.(this is not including all the other ranks.) So in total that is 537,536 people.
As you all can see these are some big numbers that are broken down to more manageable numbers.
So my questions are: what should each Squad consist of? what races work well together? What should the lowest LV be? what should the highest LV be?
I'm a little late to the discussion, so I'm propably repeating something someone else has already said. So be it.
For medieval fantasy, 530+ thousand men is ... well, that's an enormous army. A truly staggering size, and propably actually impossible, not only because populations wouldn't allow for it, but also because logistics would snap like dry tinder 10 feet out the door. You couldn't feed or clothe or equip that many men with the technology and ressources available. Although that's without taking magic into the calculation - that's impossible without a lenthy discussion about how commonplace magic is.
I think it's easier to go another way. Say, for a country like mine (Denmark - and it's not mine in any sense except I live here) divided into len (or fiefs). In a country of this size, almost all of these would be rural, with 5 being city fiefs. There'd be a number of towns too, but that number is sorta fluid - precisely when does a village become a town and so on.
So ... 200 fiefs, each able to maintain maybe on the order of 10-20 men-at-arms, and raise another 100 conscripts in a time of war. Very rough averages here, but they're high averages. Larger towns and cities would have larger standing forces - but would not, on the other hand, much go into conscription. So for a nation the size of Denmark you're looking at - at most - maybe 25.000 men under arms. In a wartime mobilization sort of scenario. Christian IV, who ruled in the 16 hundreds had - and I sorta quote - 600 horse and 3000 men, while the duchy of Schlesvig-Holstein was to provide half that. 900 cavalry, 4000 men. This is early renaissance, and it's the standing army, but it still shows you that there's quite a gap up to almost half a million men.
Now, for a fantasy army, clearly you'd also need to represent whatever fieldable units your country is capable of, be it giants or wyverns or orcs or magical siege artillery.
Are historical references legal? Damn I hope so. Otherwise my apologies in advance =)
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Some armies are highly organized, like the Romans.
Some are not well organized, but are based on zealous loyalty, like rebel armies and religious armies.
And sometimes army leaders aren't necessarily the best leaders but instead nobility. Major land owners may command their own armies as vassals. Commanders may also be cousins of kings or queens.
Sometimes the lord is the supreme commander, but has an actual trained officer to actually manage them.
Maybe there are clearly marked officers or maybe there is the lord and his brother and his best man from his first marriage.
So. I think really can be anything. Leaders aren't always smart. 😄
First off how big is the supporting civilian population? The army is never bigger than the supporting population. In fact if one in ten is a full time solder you would be lucky.2 in ten when pressed could be semi trained reservists who only train once or twice a year and only for their own defense.
In ancient times nations only went to war after the harvest season and before planting season. Most full time solders still mostly did physical grunt work to fill in the dawn time. Helping on the farms and maintaining the roads.There were also no professional police forces so the solders would also do that duty. Tax collectors, boarder guards and their own support staff.
There was very little trained support staff for ancient armies. They did everything from maintaining their uniforms, equipment and arms. To taking care of their own animals.
During and before the American Civil War it was a well known practice of rich men to recruit train equip and then field their own troops. They would be granted rank according to the amount and type of solders raised. Fort Pulaski is named after a polish noble who came to America and financed his own command.
Modern armies now have about a 4 to 1 support troop count. Four noncombat support troops to every combat troop.
During the height of the knightly era they knights were the nobles who hired their own support troops. At the beginning most were just well armored commanders. Towards the end of that era most knights were solders who were hired and equipped by the local noble/king.
First determine what style of army you will have. Anything from a roving band of angry people, mongol hoards, knights, or modern industrial mass production army. Then determine how many can be afforded.
As for magic in your army. Remember caster of any style are the most educated and thus highest paid troop you will ever have. Are you really going to waste his spell slots on messaging? No. Are you going to use his for a front line medic? No he will stay back like a doctor and wait for the wounded to show up. And if you ever use a caster in combat they are going to be the best protected and defended unit on the field, they will be watched for and targeted all the time by the other side. Imagine 100 archers taking max range shots at them for the duration of the fight. That 150 foot range fireball puts them right in the middle of ranged combat. Long bow has a short range of 150 feet.
A casters real army work begins a year ahead of the battle. They should be making healing potions and scrolls for the upcoming battles. Every spell on a scroll is a saved spell slot. Every magic item usable by a typical solder is a saved caster.
This is a rather vague question. There are so many factors that influence what an army should look like, without some parameters, I can only answer your question with other questions:
And I'm sure I've missed a bunch of other parameters, but I think I've made my point clear. Just asking "How to build an army?" is too vague of a question to provide a satisfactory answer.
What's the worst that could happen?
if you want to build army in dnd become necromancy wizard and cast animate dead a lot at grave sites ancient battlefields bone piles or anywhere else you can imagine dead bodies being and then for the big beast use the teams cleric (if you have one ) to cast true resurrection and then take a long rest and repeat if there is more than one .
I'm a little late to the discussion, so I'm propably repeating something someone else has already said. So be it.
For medieval fantasy, 530+ thousand men is ... well, that's an enormous army. A truly staggering size, and propably actually impossible, not only because populations wouldn't allow for it, but also because logistics would snap like dry tinder 10 feet out the door. You couldn't feed or clothe or equip that many men with the technology and ressources available. Although that's without taking magic into the calculation - that's impossible without a lenthy discussion about how commonplace magic is.
I think it's easier to go another way. Say, for a country like mine (Denmark - and it's not mine in any sense except I live here) divided into len (or fiefs). In a country of this size, almost all of these would be rural, with 5 being city fiefs. There'd be a number of towns too, but that number is sorta fluid - precisely when does a village become a town and so on.
So ... 200 fiefs, each able to maintain maybe on the order of 10-20 men-at-arms, and raise another 100 conscripts in a time of war. Very rough averages here, but they're high averages. Larger towns and cities would have larger standing forces - but would not, on the other hand, much go into conscription. So for a nation the size of Denmark you're looking at - at most - maybe 25.000 men under arms. In a wartime mobilization sort of scenario. Christian IV, who ruled in the 16 hundreds had - and I sorta quote - 600 horse and 3000 men, while the duchy of Schlesvig-Holstein was to provide half that. 900 cavalry, 4000 men. This is early renaissance, and it's the standing army, but it still shows you that there's quite a gap up to almost half a million men.
Now, for a fantasy army, clearly you'd also need to represent whatever fieldable units your country is capable of, be it giants or wyverns or orcs or magical siege artillery.
Are historical references legal? Damn I hope so. Otherwise my apologies in advance =)
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Some armies are highly organized, like the Romans.
Some are not well organized, but are based on zealous loyalty, like rebel armies and religious armies.
And sometimes army leaders aren't necessarily the best leaders but instead nobility. Major land owners may command their own armies as vassals. Commanders may also be cousins of kings or queens.
Sometimes the lord is the supreme commander, but has an actual trained officer to actually manage them.
Maybe there are clearly marked officers or maybe there is the lord and his brother and his best man from his first marriage.
So. I think really can be anything. Leaders aren't always smart. 😄
Finland GMT/UTC +2
The Bastion system actually eventually offers a way to put together a decent fighting force. Very high level, though.